antibiotic resistance

Tag archives for antibiotic resistance

I’ve been involved in a few discussions of late on science-based sites around yon web on antibiotic resistance and agriculture–specifically, the campaign to get fast food giant Subway to stop using meat raised on antibiotics, and a graphic by CommonGround using Animal Health Institute data, suggesting that agricultural animals aren’t an important source of resistant bacteria.…

Eleven years ago, two scientists made a bet. One scientist wagered that a new type of antimicrobial agent, called antimicrobial peptides, would not elicit resistance from bacterial populations which were treated with the drugs. Antimicrobial peptides are short proteins (typically 15-50 amino acids in length) that are often positively charged. They are also a part of our…

The ecology of antibiotic resistance on farms is complicated. Animals receive antibiotic doses in their food and water, for reasons of growth promotion, disease prophylaxis, and treatment. Other chemicals in the environment, such as cleaning products or antimicrobial metals in the feed, may also act as drivers of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic-resistant organisms may also be…

I mentioned last month that we are planning an Emerging Diseases conference here in April. Things are moving quickly and registration is now open (here). Abstract submission is also up and running here. The details: Oral and poster presentation research abstracts are due by 5:00pm on March 23, 2012. Individuals may submit up to two…

I recently gave a talk to a group here in Iowa City, emphasizing just how frequently we share microbes. It was a noontime talk over a nice lunch, and of course I discussed how basically we humans are hosts to all kinds of organisms, and analysis of our “extended microbiome” shows that we share not…

Back in November, I blogged about one of our studies, examining methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in Iowa meat products. In that post, I mentioned that it was one of two studies we’d finished on the subject. Well, today the second study is out in PLoS ONE (freely available to all). In this study, we focused…

I’ve blogged previously on a few U.S. studies which investigated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in raw meat products (including chicken, beef, turkey, and pork). This isn’t just a casual observation as one who eats food–I follow this area closely as we also have done our own pair of food sampling investigations here in Iowa, and will…

As I mentioned previously, I’m heading up organization of this conference, which will take place September 8-11 in Washington, DC. The abstract submission deadline has just been extended another week until next Friday, the 24th, so there’s still time to send in an abstract. Hope to see many of you in September!

An ahead-of-print paper in Emerging Infectious Diseases is generating some buzz in the mainstream media. While the findings are interesting, I’m honestly not sure how they got published, being so preliminary. Like many areas, Vancouver, British Columbia has seen a jump in the prevalence of bedbugs. After finding impoverished patients infested with the bugs, researchers…

As Maryn McKenna and others have reported, a paper was released on Friday showing a high percentage of drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus contaminating raw, retail-available meat products. There has been a lot of media coverage of this finding–so what does the study say, and what are its implications? More after the jump.